ReFABricating School with Ana Fabrega

Ana joins me to chat about why kids need to be creative ini the classroom 
(and at home!). Creativity is the name of the game in many cases. Not only has Ana had experiences that has shown he that kids work best when they are creative but finds that most schools just don't cut it in the creativity department and lack learning that gets kids excited.

Where to find Ana:

• Her YouTube page!
• Her website!

Podcast

Transcription (May contain typos…)

[00:00:00] Ana: [00:00:00] kids are not interested in learning. They're interested in doing, they love creating. They love using their hands. They love exploring things. And again, it's very counterintuitive in school.

They do the opposite, right? Kids are sitting down with you. And they were listening for hours to a lecture. They have little opportunity to really engage in the content that they're learning, quote unquote. and that goes against everything we know about kids, right? Kids are very active kids love to explore.

So giving kids a chance at home to get really like hands on the things that they want to do. [00:01:00]

Mike: [00:01:09]

today on the podcast, I have a very special guest, miss fab, herself on a fiber guy, who is an edge opener, former teacher. but one of the things that she does is she, teachers, I think just really a different way to approach education.

And, I wanted to have her on to hear her a little bit of her story and how she can open up our minds a little bit on how we think about education for our kids. So Ana, thank you so much for being on the 

Ana: [00:01:34] show. Thank you, Mike. Thank you for inviting me over. I'm excited to be here. 

Mike: [00:01:38] Yeah. obviously a lot going on in the education space, given COVID and anywhere from elementary school, all the way up to higher education, there's a lot of disruption happening as much as I hate to overuse that word.

But, I know on a, you speak a lot on some of those trends that are happening, whether it's micro schools or other things that are Busting into the scene. [00:02:00] And I, one of the things that maybe you could give your background a little bit, the listeners, cause I know you have a teaching background and then we can jump into some of the things that happening.

Ana: [00:02:08] Yeah, sure. I think that's a good idea. My add typical school experience provided a springboard to, me wanting to transform this. so yeah, I was born in Panama, but due to my father's job, we had to relocate Kate a lot when I was a kid. So I was born here, but we moved to Colombia, Venezuela, India, Mexico, Brazil.

We lived in Panama and the U S yes. so by the time I was 14, I had been to. Seven different 10 different schools in seven different countries. And in regions, those specs, I know, realize that. a lot of my wanting to change things comes from what I saw in all this different placements. and it was, it looked pretty much the same, regardless of what school, what type of school, what country would continent the learning experience K through 12 doesn't really change.

and [00:03:00] I had this love for working with kids. I really wanted to be I'm a teacher and being the education space. So I studied childhood education. Special education at NYU. And I have the opportunity to be a student teacher, five different placements there while I was studying. And that was really the first time that I got to see teaching in its purest form and seeing what, they would consider great teachers doing what they do.

And it was evident, that kids were not really engaged. Kids were not really learning in terms of, they're not retaining the information after the tests. th